Venison roast

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Hi folks..

I will be spending Christmas with my dear friend who is a hunter. He told me he has a venison roast we can cook.

I'm not a hunter, nor a game eater. But, I'm game. :-) I've looked up recipes on SOAR for venison roast. One, with oranges and cranberries sounded good. But, I cannot use sugar in cooking this roast. I also cannot use a lot of fats or oils..and some of the recipes called for salt pork.

So..any ideas? I can get him to marinate the roast ahead of my arrival. I think. Maybe this can replace the oils/fats? I like the idea of fruit and spices. And a few fruits would be okay sugarwise. How long to marinate? With what? Best way to cook? I can bring either a Rompertoff or a dutch oven [he lives a very minimalist life and doesn't have a lot of cooking things].

TIA

PC

-- pc (jasper2@doblover.com), December 09, 2001

Answers

A hunter friend just brought two venison roasts over for me to smoke for him tomorrow. That is really the way I like it best too. Is it possible to smoke it, even for a short time, over an open firepit (hot coals and a little wet wood)?

-- Anne (Healthytouch101@wildmail.com), December 09, 2001.

My husband and kids love when I cook it like beef roast. For every pound of meat,add 1 beef bouillion cube + 1 cup water.A medium sized onion sliced up and a green pepper.Salt,pepper and garlic seasoning.What really makes it tender is putting it in the fridge (after it's cooked )for at least four hours ,then in a low ( 225 - 250)oven or warm dutch oven,simmer til warm all the way thru.

-- Sherry (gunther@liljasper.net), December 09, 2001.

Joy of Cooking has a madeira marinade. Make it with port wine, marinate roasts overnight and then pot roast.

-- Just Duckie (Duck@spazmail.com), December 09, 2001.

I recently marinated a ven steak with the Kikimon Terryaki honey and mustand. Ohhhhhh, it was sooooo good. Don't overcook.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), December 09, 2001.

Barbeque high 5-10 min( searing in juices) then lower heat for 15- 20.Do not Over cook! Very difficult to answer you when you do not state Size or Cut of Meat???

-- berto (biketrax4u@aol.com), December 09, 2001.


i cook my roast in a large crock pot. put meat in crock and cover with water. add 2-3 beef bullion cubes,salt,pepper to taste. i also add onion salt/powder, garlic salt/powder, meat tenderizer,crushed red peppers. let cook overnite and next day on low. remove meat from juices and place in large serving bowl. use juices to make brown gravy.if you need further help, just email me.

-- loretta in iowa park,tx (johnray@wf.net), December 10, 2001.

PC, I generally cook a venison roast the same way I would a beef roast. I usually just season the outside of the meat generously with salt and pepper. I then sear it on all sides in a dutch oven set over high heat with just a little bit of oil. After the meat has been seared (browned well), I put it into a 375 degree oven and roast it until a meat thermometer inserted into the center of the roast reads 135 degrees. I then remove the meat from the oven and let it rest at room temperature for about 20-25 minutes. The resting allows the juices of the meat to re-distribute throughout the meat and the residual heat in the meat also continues to cook it a little bit. I wouldn't recommend cooking venison more than medium rare (140 on meat thermometer). If it is overcooked, it will become tougher. If you don't have one, I would definately recommend getting an "instant read" teremometer for cooking meat. It is the only sure way of telling just how cooked a piece of meat is without cutting into it. They're very reasonably priced, usually under $5 at a good supermarket or Wal-Mart.

Another trick to add flavor is to cut small slits into the meat and insert pieces of garlic into the slits before searing. Hope this helps.

-- Murray in ME (lkdmfarm@megalink.net), December 10, 2001.


Thanks for all the hints folks. I think I'll go with the dutch oven. Must remember to bring my thermometer. Smoking sounds great. But, I haven't the energy to traipse my smoker there. Crockpot sounds great. But, his is very small and I don't have one. Wouldn't cooking it in a crockpot make it come out more like a pot roast? Is venison more suited to a pot roast than a roast roast?

To the person who suggested searing the roast first..does this make it tender like a marinade would?

I'll let you all know how it turns out!

Thanks..

PC

-- pc (jasper2@iname.com), December 10, 2001.


My favourite marinade is some reduced-salt soy sauce, some garlic (I mostly use powder, but fresh is even better), some oregano (I actually use dried, but fresh would be even better - not too much, as it can be bitter), some dry white wine, some French-onion soup mix. Maybe green peppers or chili, depending on taste. I work on the "slurp of this, glug of that, a few pinches of the other" principle, so can't give you exact quantities; but I do know people who might breathe on each other should ALL eat it - I LIKE garlic. Soak under refrigeration for 24 hours, turning occasionally, then roast, grill; or pot-roast in the marinade. Leftover juices / marinade can have browned flour or gravy mix added, and be reduced to a sauce or gravy. Come to think of it, cranberries would be good in that too, but I haven't tried that. I can't see why this wouldn't work for venison, and add enough flavour to overcome any gaminess anyone might object to, but in fact I've only used it on beef (although on grilled steaks, oven roasts, and pot roasts).

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), December 10, 2001.

We eat a lot of deer meat, and my favorite way is to simply drop it in the crockpot and dump on a can of cream of mushroom soup. It's always tender, and not gamey.

Lisbeth SE Iowa

-- Lisbeth Bishop (lkb1959@iowatelecom.net), December 10, 2001.



PC, Searing the roast won't make make it more tender. Searing does 3 things. First, it helps keep the meat juicier by making a little bit of a crust on the outside of the meat. This crust helps hold the juices inside the roast. The second thing searing does is add some flavor from the slight caramelization on the outside. The last benefit from searing is a nice color on the meat.

The 2 most important things you can do to help ensure a tender roast are to let the meat rest at room temperature for 20 - 25 minutes before slicing and to slice the meat properly. Resting the meat is important for 2 reasons. First, when meat is cooked, the muscle fibers contract from the heat. Resting the meat allows those fibers to relax a little bit and helps to make the meat more tender. The other reason to let the meat rest is that during cooking, the juices in the meat tend to concentrate in the center of the meat, away from the heat, resting allows the juices to redistibute throughout the meat so that it will be evenly juicy not dried out on the outside. The other important thing is to always slice your roast across the grain and to slice it fairly thinly. In general, the thinner you slice a roast, the more tender it will be. As I mentioned in my earlier response, it is also very important not to overcook your roast. Overcooking any type of meat tends to toughen it. That rule is doubly true for any kind of wild game. (That rule is for roasting of course, not slow, moist cooking techniques such as stewing.)

If you start off with a good piece of meat and cook and slice it properly, it should be very tender. Cooked in this way, a marinade would be more for flavoring than anything. I generally roast without marinating simply because it eliminates a step in the cooking process and is quicker and a little easier. A couple of the marinade ideas mentioned in other responses are similar to ones I sometimes use. The others sound very good as well. It sounds like we have some great cooks here on the forum.

-- Murray in ME (lkdmfarm@megalink.net), December 11, 2001.


A simple recipe is to marinade the venison roast in the refrigerator overnight, covered with a bottle's worth of Italian Dressing, and then spit roast the following day.

Here is a site that has a multitude of venison recipes you might like to look at and see what suits you --

http://www.justgamerecipes.com/venison/index.shtml

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), December 11, 2001.


I have found that recipes for lamb, beef, & venison are interchangable. So if you already have a recipe you have used before, just use that on the venison. Also, those recipes that call for salt pork (some ask for bacon instead) are used for meats that are usually dry (helps to keep meat tender & juicy).

Good eating

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (jawjlewis@netzero.net), December 11, 2001.


Well, I smoked the two boneless roasts (about 3-5 pounds each) for 3 1/2 hours. I smeared garlic and salt/pepper first. I used hickory for the smoke.

Then I finished them off in the oven at 375 degrees F until we hit 140 degrees F on the instant read meat thermometer. Perfect. Oh, when I went to put them in the oven I added a few cups of water and some dehydrated ramps for flavor. I then basted the meat frequently as it finished. I also covered the meat with foil when it went in the oven.

-- Anne (Healthytouch101@wildmail.com), December 11, 2001.


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